Uncle tom's cabin - online children's book

Complete unabridged version in one volume

sayin' nothin'; and I 'd got him nicely swapped off for a keg o' whiskey ; but come to get him away from the gal, she was jest like a tiger. So 't was before we started, and I had n't got my gang chained up ; so what should she do but ups on a cotton-bale, like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands, and, I tell ye, she made all fly for a niinnit, till she saw't warn't no use ; and she jest turns round, and pitches head first, young un and all, into the river — went down plump, and never ris."

kiBah ! " said Tom Loker, who had listened to these stories with ill-repressed disgust, — " shif'less, both on ye ! my gals don't cut up no such shines, I tell ye ! "

ilIndeed ! how do you help it ? " said Marks, briskly.

" Help it ? why, I buys a gal, and if she 's got a young un to be sold, I jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and says, ' Look here, now, if you give me one word out of your head, I '11 smash yer face in. I won't hear one word, — not the beginning of a word.' I says to 'em, 'This yer young un 's mine, and not yourn, and you 've no kind o' business with it. I 'm going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don't cut up none o' yer shines about it, or I '11 make ye wish ye 'd never been born.' I tell ye, they sees it an't no play, when I gets hold. I makes 'em as whist as fishes ; and if one on 'em begins and gives a yelp, why " — and Mr. Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained the hiatus.

" That ar 's what ye may call emphasis" said Marks, poking Haley in the side, and going into another small giggle. " An't Tom peculiar ? he ! he ! he ! I say, Tom, I spect you make 'em understand, for all niggers' heads is woolly.. They don't never have no doubt o' your mean­ing, Tom. If you an't the devil, Tom, you 's his twin brother, I '11 say that for ye ! "

Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and began to look as affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan says, " with his doggish nature."